History Trivia / TheThiefAndTheCobbler

* DoingItForTheArt: Oh yeah. You don't spend close to 30 years on a run-on-the-mill film: Richard Williams fully intended this to be his masterpiece and a blockbuster. It's humbling, to say the least.

* SavedFromDevelopmentHell: The film languished in production for three decades, with Richard Williams steadfastly refusing to give up on it. In fact, pretty much every job he took in the interim was done purely for the money so he could continue working on his [[DoingItForTheArt labor of love]] (which certainly explains the likes of ''WesternAnimation/RaggedyAnnAndAndyAMusicalAdventure''). By the time the film was finally released in a severely compromised form in 1995, the hero had several lines and Vincent Price had been dead for two years. Fortunately, there now exists a fan-created version of the film, which uses both footage from the compromised release as well as the animators' own rough animation tests, to better suit the original vision of the story.

* BoxOfficeBomb: The original version that was cobbled together from Williams's workprint and Creator/MiramaxFilms's meddling couldn't even reach a million dollars in sales. The movie cost '''$28,000,000''' to produce.

* TheOtherMarty: Almost all of the original voice cast carefully selected by Richard Williams were replaced once Fred Calvert took over. Most of the scenes had already been animated to the old voices, but were redubbed anyway. A little bit of Anthony Quayle survived in the finished versions, notably in the scene where he gives a speech to his subjects; some of Creator/JoanSims as the Witch also remains. Some notable voice actors who thankfully ''weren't'' dubbed over include Creator/VincentPrice as Zigzag and Creator/WindsorDavies as Chief Roofless.

* BoxOfficeBomb: The original version that was cobbled together from Williams's workprint and Creator/MiramaxFilms's meddling couldn't even reach a million dollars in sales. The movie cost $28,000,000 to produce.

* OldShame: It became this trope to Richard Williams for a while, but he eventually made peace with the film twenty years later.

* TheOtherMarty: Almost all of the original voice cast carefully selected by Richard Williams were replaced once Fred Calvert took over. Most of the scenes had already been animated to the old voices, but were redubbed anyway. A little bit of Anthony Quayle survived in the finished versions, notably in the scene where he gives a speech to his subjects; some of Creator/JoanSims as the Witch also remains. Some notable voice actors who thankfully ''weren't'' dubbed over include Creator/VincentPrice as Zigzag and Windsor Davies as Chief Roofless.

** [[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112389/trivia/ According to this film's trivia section on IMDB]], more money was spent editing and adding songs, then what would have been spent on just finishing the film by Williams' intent.

** In the years following the film's release, there were originally plans for an official restoration of the film by Creator/{{Disney}} that would've spearheaded by Roy E. Disney. However, the lackluster reception to their own 2D films at the time, combined with ongoing tensions between Roy and Eisner (causing the former to leave Disney) and Roy's eventual passing in 2009, would put the kibosh on any plans for an official restoration.

* HarpoDoesSomethingFunny: Richard Williams didn't use storyboards, and instead encouraged his animators to invent stuff themselves. He did have a script, which he only followed very loosely. Ken Harris, the main animator of the thief, was so fast in animating that Williams constantly made up very rough ideas and situations for the character in order to keep him working. Williams finally created storyboards for the whole film in 1992, when he was forced to make a workprint. However, it ultimately may have been the film's downfall, as the lack of planning lead to Williams being unable to complete it on time and having it turned over to the completion company.

* ImageSource: AmbiguouslyHuman

** Early on, in the '60s, the film was supposed to be about the tricky Arabian folk tale character Mullah Nasruddin. The idea had to be dropped because of disagreements of the rights to the character. Many of the supporting characters were taken from the Nasruddin film.

* DevelopmentHell: The longest and, arguably, most difficult example in the history of animation. Richard Williams spent about '''three decades''' on this film, using money earned from various short films and commercial advertisements. At one point Saudi-Arabian prince Mohammed bin Faisal Al Saud became interested and funded ten minutes (the war machine scene) as a test. Sadly, Mohammed bin Faisal was scared away by missed deadlines and budget overruns. The project returned to its slow pace, until Richard Williams gained funding from Creator/WarnerBros after his success on ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' under the agreement that the film be completed for a specific date and amount of money. About half of the completed scenes were made during this period. Unfortunately, Williams's perfectionism caused him to miss the deadline and, fifteen minutes shy of completion, turned it over to the completion bond company and was replaced with [[LimitedAnimation low-budget animator]] Fred Calvert, resulting in a great amount of OffModel animation and {{Disneyfication}}.[[note]] The film's long gestation meant it had the distinction of being the final film of animators [[UsefulNotes/NoteworthyDisneyStaff Art Babbitt]] (died 1992), [[UsefulNotes/NoteworthyLooneyTunesStaff Ken Harris]] (died 1982), and Creator/GrimNatwick (died 1990), and actors Felix Aylmer (died 1979), Sir Anthony Quayle (died 1989), Creator/VincentPrice (died 1993), and Creator/KennethWilliams (died 1988).[[/note]]
* DoingItForTheArt: Oh yeah. You don't spend close to thirty years on a run-on-the-mill film: Richard Williams fully intended this to be his masterpiece and a blockbuster. It's humbling, to say the least.

** Not to mention the early period when it was about Mulla Nasruddin, and has names such as "''Nasruddin!''", "''The Majestic Fool"'' or "''The Amazing Nasruddin''".

** [[UsefulNotes/NoteworthyDisneyStaff Art Babbitt]], responsible for Zeus and the Chinese mushrooms in ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}'', and infamous for organizing the 1941 strike against Creator/WaltDisney. For ''Thief'' he drew King Nod and the vulture Phido, although only a small number of scenes (mainly King Nod proclaiming the 'destruction and death' he fears his kingdom to be fated to and several scenes with Zigzag and Phido in the former's tower) legitimately animated by him remain within the 1992 workprint and Recobbled Cut.
** [[UsefulNotes/NoteworthyLooneyTunesStaff Ken Harris]], longtime number one animator in the Chuck Jones unit [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes during production on the original golden-age era batch of Warner Bros. cartoons]]. Ken's animation of the Thief (albeit in a form largely reworked posthumously by Disney and DreamWorks alumnus Neil Boyle in the 1992 workprint and Recobbled Cut, despite the majority of the footage in question retaining visible hallmarks of Harris's style) is similar to his work on Wile E. Coyote.

** [[UsefulNotes/NoteworthyDisneyStaff Art Babbitt]], responsible for Zeus and the Chinese mushrooms in ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}'', and infamous for organizing the 1941 strike against Creator/WaltDisney. For ''Thief'' he drew King Nod and the vulture Phido.
** [[UsefulNotes/NoteworthyLooneyTunesStaff Ken Harris]], number one animator in the Chuck Jones unit [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes during production on the original golden-age era batch of Warner Bros. cartoons]]. Ken's animation of the Thief is similar to his work on Wile E. Coyote.
** Emery Hawkins, who worked for '''every single''' cartoon studio that existed in Hollywood between the 1930s and the '50s. It is not exactly known what he animated on ''Thief'' (many animation buffs guess he drew [[DeletedScene the ogre-prince who isn't in the Recobbled Cut]]).

* ThrowItIn: One that led to some Funny Moments on set. Richard Williams convinced a group of Irish voice actors to record for the Brigands after making sure they had plenty to drink and had them read the script. He kept the tape rolling as they got more and more [[DrunkPeopleAreFunny drunk]]. Eventually they started fighting, with Williams getting it all on tape, using it in the film (which remains even in the edited cuts).

* DuelingMovies: With Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'' [[note]] This film had a '''considerably''' shorter timetable to completion, even with a ResetButton forced on it by Jeffrey Katzenberg 18 months before release, and then managed to reach video at about the time ''The Thief and the Cobbler's'' Miramax cut hit theaters. [[/note]] Considering that this movie had been in production approximately 24 years before ''Aladdin'' had been conceived, not to mention many themes and ideas borrowed from Richard Williams's film, this has not been without controversy, though Williams himself said he never really minded.

** Creator/SeanConnery was intended to voice [[spoiler: Tack’s one line]], but he never showed up to record it. Instead, a friend of Richard Williams’s wife performed the role.

* Creator/SeanConnery was intended to voice [[spoiler: Tack’s one line]], but he never showed up to record it. Instead, a friend of Richard Williams’s wife performed the role.
* WorkingTitle: Before becoming ''The Thief And The Cobbler'', the film had such titles as "''The Thief Who Never Gave up''", "''Once...''", simply "''The Thief''", or even "''The Cobbler And The Thief''". The film was released after ExecutiveMeddling under two names, "''The Princess And The Cobbler''" and the punny "''Arabian Knight''", before being released on VHS by Creator/{{Disney}}/Miramax as "''The Thief And The Cobbler''".

* AllStarCast: In addition to directing and animating extensive sequences, Richard Williams went to great lengths to secure not only the greatest voice cast of all time for a cartoon (Creator/VincentPrice, Creator/DonaldPleasence, Anthony Quayle to name a few, but also the greatest team of animators:

* AllStarCast: In addition to directing and animating extensive sequences, Richard Williams went to great lengths to secure not only the greatest voice cast of all time for a cartoon (Creator/VincentPrice, Creator/DonaldPleasence, Anthony Quayle to name a few, [[spoiler:even Creator/SeanConnery has a role as the voice of Tack]]) but also the greatest team of animators:

* AuthorExistenceFailure: With Richard Williams succumbing to cancer on August 17, 2019, any remaining hope that the film would eventually see a proper completion was seriously dampened.